


What Do You Think, Scully?

by MushroomDoggo



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Best Friends, Brotp, Developing Relationship, Drabbles, Established Relationship, F/M, Ficlets, Fluff, Happy, MSR, One Shot Collection, Romantic Friendship, Stand Alone Chapters, i guess either can apply in most cases, oneshots, some non-shipping, some shiping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4438283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MushroomDoggo/pseuds/MushroomDoggo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder always has some kind of snarky question and a hidden agenda. Scully always has the science to answer appropriately.</p><p>(POV varies first Scully/first Mulder/third)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. About Tomatoes

“Scully, what do you think about tomatoes?”

There was a small pause before the inevitable “Tomatoes?”

“You know, where do you stand?” I tossed my little red rubber ball in the air a few more times.

She scoffed as she realized my inspiration behind the question. Leaning back in her chair and folding her arms, she asked “On what issue precisely?”

I tossed the ball a little too far to the right, and it bounced over Scully’s desk. She froze with a look of shock and disgust on her face. After a few slow blinks, she cast me a glance that said “I knew this would happen. It always does. Isn’t that just typical.”

“Fruit or vegetable?” I asked before she could make her thoughts known.

The chair squeaked as she pulled it back up to her desk. “Fruit, technically. Although it’s legally a vegetable, I say fruit.”

“Of course. Isn’t that just so you. Take the scientific approach. It’s technically a fruit, so therefore it is. Doesn’t it taste like a vegetable?” I asked.

“Nothing tastes like a vegetable, Mulder. Things taste savory, or taste similarly to other vegetables, but nothing tastes like a vegetable. Tomatoes are considered savory because they are acidic, but they do actually have sugar in them.” As usual, she had all of the science right on the tip of her tongue to back up her point.

“So you’ve given this a lot of thought, have you?” I murmured.

“What?”

“I said, ‘What about pineapples?’ Pineapples are acidic, too. Why aren’t they considered a vegetable?”

She sighed. “That’s not even close to the point I was trying to make.”

“What about other vegetables? What about, um… lettuce?”

“What about it?”

“Does it have sugar?”

She pushed her chair away from her desk again to look me right in the eye. “I have no idea what it is you’re trying to argue.”

“What constitutes a food as a fruit or a vegetable?”

“The Supreme Court, apparently.”

I sighed. “But it goes on a salad!”

Scully shook her head. “I love that I keep mentioning the legality of tomato classification, yet you need to return to its taste and never question it.”

“Ugh.” I put my forehead down on Scully’s desk, sick of the argument I had created. After a minute or two, I held out my hand.

“What?”

“If you won’t give me a straight answer, I need twenty bucks.”

She tilted her chin down and folded her arms over her chest, mimicking the look of a mother about to scold. “Why?”

“Because I bet Frohike that you’d say it was a vegetable.”

She shook her head. “I don’t even like tomatoes.”

“Oh, my God…”


	2. About Stars

“Scully, what do you think about--”

“I think you’re out of your mind, Mulder.”

I laughed a little bit. “That’s… I mean, that wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

Scully sighed. She reached down to unclasp the belt buckle, one hand still on the wheel as though we were planning on going somewhere. “You were going to ask something ridiculous. I know that tone. I bet it was something about stars or the universe. I bet you’d even work in a little bit of alien and conspiracy-- just for me.”

There was this look Scully had when you’d managed to make her happy. It was kind of silly, of course-- I hadn’t said anything even a little bit funny. She’d busted in to do all of that. Still, though, the corners of her mouth tugged upward a bit, and she looked at me suspiciously. 

“I just… what DO you think about stars?”

Another deep sigh. “What about them, Mulder?” she droned. I couldn’t blame her, though. These types of questions were part of the daily proceedings around me.

I shrugged, the already noncommittal movement restricted by my own seatbelt. Scully fixed that with a single perfectly-manicured nail on the bright red plastic. It shot past my face and into its home.

Carefully removing my arm from the taught trap, I said “Anything. Do you like them? Do you believe in horoscopes? Do you… do you hate them because they make you feel small, or love them because they make you feel big? Anything.”

Scully’s eyebrows danced for a moment as she searched for an appropriate expression. “Well… I do kind of hate it when I’m in a place where I can’t see them.”

“Which is all the time, right?”

“Not always.” She never looked at me while she spoke. She preferred to consider other things. This time, rather than the stars, she was occupied by a tiny thread poking out of the seam on her lapel. “We used to go on vacations all the time.”

“Who’s we?” I asked softly.

Her voice was muffled by her awkward position (trying to look down at her lapel without moving it) as she said “My siblings and my parents.”

“What, and we don’t go on vacations?” I chuckled.

There was the face again. She had liked what I’d said, but she’d never let me know that.

“We go on cases, Mulder. We sit in this smelly car for hours and then we spend a week or two trying not to get killed.” She managed to get a decent grip on the thread, then yanked it out with a sharp tug. Proud of her work, she added “If that’s a vacation, I don’t want any more.”

I stared at her for a long time. She stared, too, but out of the windshield. Not even at the stars-- just straight ahead.

“Why don’t you like them?” I finally asked.

She turned to me. She seemed only slightly perplexed, falsely, trying to perpetuate the lie that nothing was bothering her. “What was that?”

“It’s a good memory, right? Why won’t you look at the stars?”

“Is this an interrogation? We’re on a stakeout, Mulder! I’m doing my job!”

I rolled my eyes and opened the door. 

“What are you doing?”

Keeping my eyes fixed on her, I backed out of the car and offered her a hand. “Come on.”

All she could do was scoff a couple times, sigh, and shake her head.

“Both you and I know he’s not coming back--”

“Oh, because he was abducted?” Scully gave me the typical brighter-than-thou glare. 

I slammed the car door, walked around the hood to the other side and pulled my partner out into the night air.

“I don’t have time for this!” she complained.

“You got plenty of time! It’s, like, three in the morning!” I responded.

I clambered onto the trunk of the car, turning carefully so as not to create any dents, and sat back down. With my back against the rear windshield and my hands interlaced behind my head I was all set for star gazing.

 

Scully, all rules and eye rolls, stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. She didn’t even have to say anything--the slow changes in her expression and periodic exaggerated blinks were enough to communicate her message.

I gently patted the windshield beside me. “Come on. Hop up here.”

“Mulder, get off of my car.”

“Come on!” I insisted.

Turning my gaze upward, I pointed at a cluster of stars. “That’s, uh… kasterborous.”

Scully couldn’t help but follow my pointing finger. She leaned over to get the most accurate angle, gazing down my arm like one would gaze through the sight of a gun.

She sighed. “Castor and Pollux,” she corrected, still staring at them with one eye squinched shut. 

I glanced at her. “Hey, you know your stuff. What’s that one?” I moved my arm to another group.

She made some sounds of confusion. “Cygnus? No, Libra.”

“Ooh, just like me!” I laughed.

Scully scoffed. 

“Wow, I guess that’s a big ol’ “no” on astrology, huh?”

My arm drifted downward, and Scully seemed to remember that she was supposed to be mad at me.

“Okay, that’s enough. Back in the car.” She waved her arms like an air traffic controller, directing me down from the car and back to solid ground.

I elected to ignore this. “We’re kind of like Castor and Pollux, right?”

“Weren’t those the ones who founded Rome? One killed the other?” Scully asked.

I laughed again. “No! They were twins that lived together in the heavens… or something like that.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind she was trying to remember the myth, but all she did was stare blankly into the distance. Eventually, without a change in stance or even looking at me, she muttered “If you don’t get off the car I’ll drive away with you on it.”

I groaned, partially because I knew she wasn’t kidding and partially because I knew she was.

She walked back to the driver’s side, unlocking the door with as much sound as she could muster.

“You know I love you, right Scully?” I asked loudly.

“Oh, God…”

“No, no, really! You know that, right?” I rolled off the side of the trunk. “Together forever? In the heavens? Like Kasterborous and Pollux?”

“Castor!” she corrected as she swung into the seat. 

I snickered to myself, and Scully managed to get the key in the ignition. She sped forward a few feet, just as she had threatened, right over my toe.

Although I don’t like admitting it, I made a very loud sound of pain and tried to grip my foot, but slipped and fell in the mud.

“Mulder! Are you all right?” 

I moaned softly. “If my toe’s broken, you’re paying for it.”


	3. About Smell

“Scully, how do you like this smell?”

“What? Oh!” Her question was interrupted by an unlidded candle in the face. She took a light sniff out of principle. “Um… sugar?”

“No! It’s vanilla cream.”

“Yeah. Sugar.”

“Smells good, right?” I asked, nodding enthusiastically.

She grimaced at me. “Mulder, could we please focus?”

I waved at her dismissively. “You’re not gonna spot the robber. I told you-- it’s gotta be some kind of modern-day dragon. Only stealing jewelry when there’s expensive electronics on the ground floor, melting the locks instead of snapping them with a bolt cutter? A dragon wouldn’t come in here with a handsome knight guarding the gate to the castle.”

“What, he’s not tempted to kidnap the damsel right inside?” Scully asked, dripping on the sarcasm as thick as she could.

“He knows better than to try that.”

“Well, I don’t want a dragon OR an armed thief catching me off my guard for candles.” She seemed to process the sentence. “God, sometimes I can’t believe the stuff that comes out of my mouth…”

“Hm… I bet you’re an ocean-and-rain kinda girl, aren’t you? Should’ve known. Such prissy scents.” I shook my head, chuckling and searching for an appropriate candle.

“Sh!” Scully waved me down behind the wooden stand.

A metal clothes rack clattered to the floor, which caused the motion-activated light to flicker back on. Rather than a robber, an enormous rat stood over the mountain of designer coats..

I chuckled. “Ooh, he’s a slick one.”

Scully lowered her gun with a deep sigh.

“Aha! ‘White Cloud.’ That sound clean enough for you?” I took a quick whiff before offering Scully the candle. “That doesn’t smell anything like a cloud.”

She rolled her eyes and sniffed. “Detergent.”

I frowned at her. “Oh, come on. You’re gonna tease the candle with your hair smelling the way it does?”

A hand flew to her red hair instinctually. “What’s wrong with the way my hair smells?”

“It’s not a real smell! Go ahead-- tell me what that smell is.”

“It’s sun-ripened strawberry,” she muttered, personally offended by my ignorance when it came to shampoo scents.

I made a gesture somewhere between shrugging and throwing my hands up in exasperation. “What does that mean? Does a strawberry really smell different enough--”

“At least it makes you think of fruit and desserts. Men’s shampoo scents are all things like ‘silver,’ ‘ice,’ and ‘testosterone.’ It just makes me think of blood and B.O.”

“Are you insinuating that men would prefer things to be named that way because we’re too insecure to buy shampoo called ‘tropical’ anything?” I murmured.

“I’m not insinuating anything, except for maybe that every men’s shampoo smells exactly the same. Last I checked, ice doesn’t smell like anything at all.”

I shrugged. “Well, theoretically, it should smell the same as ‘White Cloud,’ right?”

“Don’t be a smartass, Mulder.”

We exchanged looks that suggested a challenge, and I reached up to slowly take off my tie. “You want to test me, is that it?”

“Test you?” Scully repeated. Her tone suggested boredom while her eyes hungered for another win in her belt.

I yanked the tie out of my collar.

“Keep your clothes on, Mulder.”

I held it up. “Blindfold! Go on, tie me up.”

Scully scoffed. “Why?”

“I’ve been smelling these candles for the past five minutes, pretty much nonstop.”

“Yeah, that’s not something I’d admit to anyone but me.”

“If I can’t remember the scents, I have failed not only myself but the entirety of my gender.”

Scully rolled her eyes. “That’s a tad dramatic.”

“Come on, tie it.” I shoved it at her, and she took it from me.

“Fine. If I stump you, you have to buy my shampoo from now on.”

“If I best you, you’ve gotta smell every men’s shampoo scent they carry without complaining. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Smirking with badly-disguised glee, Scully walked around behind me and started to tie up the makeshift blindfold.

“And, hey! Don’t you try any of those weird layered candles with, like, five different scents. I’ll consider it a forfeit.”

Scully chuckled, her way of agreeing to the rules I had set.

“Okay, you’re ready.”

“Hit me, Scully. I am so ready.” I did a little jog in place as though warming up for a marathon.

I heard several candles opening and closing before she picked one.

“Bend down, Mulder.”

A little bend at the knees and my chin bumped Scully’s fingers. She must have had her hands cupped around the top of the jar. I took a quick sniff: clean, sharp and bright with a definite bite on the end. 

“Um… fresh… no, Clean Linen!” I laughed triumphantly.

Scully snorted angrily and grabbed another candle. This time, it was kind of a hazy and sweet. Was that chocolate?

“Fudge Brownie?”

“Damn!” she hissed. I laughed again.

She gasped softly and opened a third candle.

“For the win, Mulder.”

“Sudden death! I like your moxie.”

I rested my chin on Scully’s hands and took a deep breath.

Uh oh.

Something sweet and kind of flowery, but not sugary sweet like the ones I had smelled. Did I miss one? Something tropical? Something beachy?

“P-pomegranate?” I whispered.

“That your final answer?” Scully asked.

“Skip the psych-out. Final answer.”

“Ha-ha! Take off the blindfold.”

I did as she said, gingerly unwrapping the red cloth and glancing down.

“Your hair?” I asked in disbelief.

Scully had a huge grin plastered on her face as she stepped back. “Better get used to that smell, Mulder-- you’ll be picking some of it up every other month!”

“That’s cheating. You cheater!”

She shrugged, still smiling like an idiot. “You said you knew the smell! This is on you, Mulder.”

Right in the middle of her gloating, the front door opened. 

“The dragon!” I pointed to the silhouette.

“Shit!”


	4. About Ducks

“Scully, what do you think about ducks?” 

Her shoulders flew up to her ears, and she whirled around to face me. “Mulder! You scared the crap out of me!”

I flashed her a cheesy grin as she caught her breath.

“Wait, did you just ask me about ducks?”

“Yeah. I bought some, uh…” I held up the paper bag. “Well, I don’t really know what it was, but it’s definitely not okay to eat now…”

Scully looked at me oddly. “And?” she prompted.

“And I wanted to feed it to the ducks.”

She stalked up to me and took the bag. I watched as she opened it and took a whiff.

“Oh!” She swiftly rolled down the top to seal in the stink. “It smells like toxic waste, Mulder! You can’t dump that in the water, it’ll-- it’ll kill the entire ecosystem! Where did you get this, anyway? You said you bought it?”

I shrugged. “Well, I bought it off Langley for a quarter. But-but he said it had only been in the fridge a few days!”

“Oh, like you can trust HIM all of a sudden…” Scully meandered back to her chair. “You’d better just throw that out, Mulder. I’m serious, that thing could poison a dog that stopped for a drink.”

I laughed. “Yeah, right. Dogs can stomach anything!”

“Except grapes, onions, garlic and chocolate.”

As I searched for a snappy comeback, Scully flashed me her I-was-right look and went back to work. I opened the bag again, held my breath, and lifted the foil-wrapped package inside as gingerly as possible.

“You know, it’s not really that bad…” I murmured. Most of the bad smell was on the bag.

Scully swivelled her chair to face me. “Don’t even THINK about eating that, Mulder.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That a challenge?”

I slowly unwrapped the foil, another wave of rancid stink flying out so forcefully and suddenly it may as well have been a puff of green smoke. Scully shuddered to watch as the horrible lump of bread and meat was revealed-- a sandwich? A taco? There was no way to know for sure.

“Yum.”

“Don’t you dare,” Scully’s voice grew husky with a mixture of seriousness and disgust.

I scoffed. “Said the mortician.”

“I am not a mortician!” she complained, this time incredibly childish.

“Whew! Is this sandwich debacle a little too personal for you or something?” I held it above my head.

Scully knew that trick, digging into my bicep with her sharp little nails. My hand spasmed and the sandwich fell out of my hands. Shockingly quick, she nabbed it before it hit the ground.

“Fine! Maybe I’ll eat it, then!” In her zeal to one-up me, she took a bite of the awful little lump.

Horror and pain filled her eyes as the taste hit her full force. She instantly gagged and ran to the garbage can, holding it up to her face as she retched.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Mulder, you’d better hold my goddamn hair!”


	5. About the Weather

“Scully, what do you think about the weather?” Mulder pointed at the skylight, somewhat concerned about the threatening conditions.

She shrugged. “I like the rain.”

“Yeah, but do you like… RAIN rain?” 

Scully grimaced. “I’m not coming down to sleep in your room, and we don’t have a couch. This is my only option.”

Mulder sighed, hanging onto the doorframe. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Scully whispered, practically mouthing, with an comically exaggerated frown and a quick ‘okay’ symbol.

Her partner’s huge feet thudded down the stairs to his temporary bedroom. Scully listened carefully for the slam of the door before moving to get changed. Despite being “married,” Scully was incredibly uncomfortable around Mulder (or Rob, as he was calling himself). She wasn’t accustomed to the intimacy that came from simply living in the same house. Eat together, sleep together, subtly antagonize the neighbors together… it was just like a real marriage, in all honesty.

Frozen in thought, Scully shivered when the first rumble of thunder reached The Falls at Arcadia. It wasn’t comforting this time. Normally, such a sound made her want to curl up with a blanket and eat something warm. She was typically happy just being indoors during a storm.

But she was being ridiculous, wasn’t she? She was an FBI agent-- she had all the power in almost any scenario, which included a thunderstorm. 

She hastily nabbed an over-sized T-shirt from the drawer. She had all the power… but she still didn’t want to be caught out of bed by the time the rain started.

Yes. That was it. 

Not scared because of the unfamiliar house and lack of a dog, but rather afraid of losing power before she could reach her bed.

After a record-setting change, Scully dashed back into bed, just like a little kid afraid of monsters grabbing her ankles.

She settled into the center of the large bed, swaddling herself in blankets and trying not to shiver. 

It was just so… big. Such a huge bed, not at all like her bed at home. It was clearly meant for a couple to sleep together, not a single FBI agent scared out of her wits by a little bit of rain.

Even after such rousing and steeling inner remarks, Scully found herself unable to sleep. She tossed and turned, threw all of her blankets off before running to collect them just a few minutes later. 

So she did all she could think to do.

Keeping her already light footsteps at the very edge of each stair, she made no sound at all creeping to the lower level. She tiptoed down to Mulder’s room, guided by the sound of his snoring. She had never heard him snore before, but it automatically made her feel at home. She could hear his voice in it, despite the animalistic quality of a snore. 

As Scully stood against the wall beside the door, she started whispering to herself.

“You’re not afraid of thunder. You’re just… concerned about your partner. It’s very hard to spend time in such a strange town and not worry about him. He’s the type to go off half-cocked and get himself killed. He’s just so far away in this big house…”

It was true, in a sense. Even though this little speech was clearly concocted to make her feel better, holding so little truth, she fell to sleep in a few minutes, leaning against her partner’s door for support.

Fortunately, Mulder’s sound sleep was interrupted by a loud crash of thunder. He leapt out of bed before he was really even awake and ran to the door. Instantly, Scully was the only thought in his mind.

He didn’t have to go far to find her. She was a bit dazed, but awake enough to look up at Mulder and smile when he opened the door. 

“Hey, Mulder…” she murmured as she rubbed her eyes sleepily.

“Hey, big girl.” Mulder offered a hand. 

They walked back to bed together, asleep before their heads hit the pillows.

They didn’t touch or face each other or even share a blanket all night. It was enough of a comfort to be near each other.

In the wee hours of the morning, long after the storm had passed, Mulder’s once heavy and deep sleep became light and peppered with movement. As he flailed about, his arm smacked Scully in the face.

Scully came to, sudden and alert. “Mulder!” she screamed out of habit. It was usually the first thought in her mind after a shock.

Scully’s partner was so badly rocked by her shout that he scrambled his way off the edge of the bed. He hit the floor with a loud thud.

“Oh!” Scully crawled over to peer over the side of the bed at him. “Mulder! I’m sorry!”

He moaned softly. “That’s okay, honey. Just hope we didn’t wake the kids.”


	6. About Sleep

“Scully, what do say you take a break? I bet you could use some sleep…” 

Little Trooper there in the driver’s seat gave a slow blink. “Nah, I’m fine, Mulder.”

I cleared my throat and leaned over. “Why don’t you pull over and let me drive?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s only…” She quinted at the clock on the dashboard. “Um…””

“Okay, it’s time for a break.” I put a hand over her’s, pulling the car gently to the right off the side of the crummy little dirt road. 

“No, no, no!” she complained so softly it could barely even count.

“Tap the break there, tough girl,” I instructed.

Scully’s head fell slowly to the steering wheel. “Mulder, I’m fine to drive! I swear!”

“I don’t care how fine you think you are, Scully-- just let me take over. I don’t mind, I promise!” I cuckled a bit. Only Scully would be THIS resistant to sleeping at such an ungodly hour. Part of it was her usual control-freak-y nature, but I think most of it was just losing to me when it came to stamina.

Of course, she didn’t know that I’d snuck in a cat nap already.

Scully moaned softly.

“Don’t make me do it, Scully,” I threatened.

Scully rolled her head to the side, giving me a sleepy and suspicious glance. “Do what?”

I opened my mouth to answer and then remember that I didn’t have one. I stuttered a bit and shrugged halfway, my shoulders coming up to my ears but somehow refusing to drop back down.

“Ugh…” She tried to smack her head on the wheel in frustration, but her forehead hit the horn, letting out one loud blast.

She screamed and sat up so fast she probably gave herself whiplash. Her head bounced off of the headrest.

I put a gentle hand on her shoulder, her eyelids very quickly growing heavy once again. 

Scully just nodded and started to get out of the car. I jumped out of my side and ran around to grab her before she face-planted into the dry desert dirt. She continued to insist that she was fine as I walked her to the passenger-side door, taking one slow step for every three of mine. 

Eventually I got her loaded into the seat. She sighed happily as I leaned it back as far as it would go. She may as well have already been asleep.

I brushed a lock of hair out of her face. She rolled over onto her side, smiling a bit.

“Hey, Mulder?” she slurred just as I was about to slam the door.

I paused and leaned down to hear her better. “What is it?”

But she was already asleep.


	7. About Doors

“Scully, what do you think about doors?”

“I’m beginning to hate them, Mulder. What do you think?” I was seriously angry. Under normal circumstances, I would never dare leave my partner space to continue discussing a question like that.

Mulder shrugged. “I just… I don’t know, I guess I thought that you’d have something to say.”

My anger was so intense at this point that it was hard to find words. “You want me to say something? Fine.”

I grabbed Mulder’s collar and pulled him close to my face. His boyish grin faded instantly.

”You are a complete idiot!” I screamed, shaking him a bit for emphasis. I let him go. “There was a back door for us-- unlocked, ready to go! You’ve jeopardized the mission, Mulder! We can’t even make a call!”

The section of the revolving door beside us held the bag with all of our supplies-- Mulder, in his zeal to cram next to me as we went through the door, had let the bag drag just far enough behind him that it had caught in the door, preventing it from moving at all.

“How could you be so stupid?” I asked, rhetorically.

Of course, Mulder felt the need to open his mouth and try to answer.

“Shut up!” I yelled before he could get a single word out. “I can’t believe you! You just have to be such a huge kid all the time! It’s useless! You’re useless!”

Mulder was looking less and less like a scolded child and more like a wet cat. 

It was very hard to pace in one quarter of a revolving door, which is what I really wanted to do just then. Instead, I had to stand staring right into Mulder’s face as I yelled at him.

“What were you thinking?” I finally demanded.

Wet cat shrugged again. “I was thinking it would be faster?” he murmured.

“Faster? You wanted to move faster? I can’t--” and my voice gave out.

I coughed a few times, but I couldn’t get a word out.

“Scully?” Mulder looked concerned, but I just gave him a harsh glare.

“Scully, what’s wrong?” He waved a hand in front of my face. I batted it away.

His eyes lit up as he realised what had happened. 

I glared even harder, pointing a finger at him less than an inch away from his nose.

“Did you just lose your voice?” he whispered. As if there was anyone around to hear him…

“Ha, ha… all bark and no teeth, huh?” 

I smacked him.

“Never mind.”

I sat down hard on the dirty tile floor, giving up for the night (or at least until someone realised we weren’t calling in reports). In frustration, I pointed at the bag and mimed taking a drink. Our water bottles were in there.

Mulder laughed as he looked down at me. “I hate to say it, but that’s what you get for being such a little--”

I punched him as hard as I could in the knee before he could finish. He grabbed it in pain, wobbling as he tried to regain his balance. Managing to keep his cool he let himself fall against the glass and slide down to the floor.

There wasn’t a whole lot of space inside the door; the radius must have been more than a meter and a half. With me sitting pretzel-legged and Mulder with his knees nearly touching his cheeks we could both sit. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was better than standing all night.

Mulder sighed deeply. I nodded, agreeing with the sound of displeasure.

“This’ll be fun,” he added.

I nodded again.

“Do you know any games we could play?” he asked.

I just glared.

“Oh, right…” He nodded slowly, then checked his watch. “It’s been two minutes. When do you think they’ll come get us?”

I shrugged. Probably all night. A stakeout wasn’t exactly the best time to be making frequent calls, so I doubted they would miss us until tomorrow morning. There was no way to communicate that to Mulder, though.

Helen Keller!

I grabbed Mulder’s arm and pushed the sleeve of his shirt up above his elbow.

“Hey!”

I drew an ‘S’ on his arm with my finger.

“Scully, what the hell are you doing?”

I drew the ‘S’ a few more times.

“What does that mean? I don’t understand!”

I hissed through my teeth, hoping that the sound would remind him of the letter.

He suddenly looked afraid. “A snake?”

I smacked my forehead in frustration.

“Not a snake…” Mulder nodded his head.

I looked around frantically for things that started with ‘S,’ hoping to point out a few to him. I guarded my eyes from the glaring streetlights and peered into the building itself. 

I pointed to one of the seats.

“A chair?”

I shook my head. 

“Cushion?” he guessed.

I stood up and sat back down. 

“Um…”

DAMMIT MULDER, IT’S AN ‘S!’

In absolute desperation, I pointed to myself.

“Scully.”

After holding my hands up in a ‘thank God’ gesture, I nodded enthusiastically. I grabbed the collar of my shirt.

“Shirt.”

The stairs at the back of the room.

“Staircase? Oh! ‘S!’” Mulder grabbed his head like he had just solved one of the greatest mysteries of the universe.

I nodded again and went to draw more letters.

“S-T-A-K-E-O-U-T… stakeout?” Mulder guessed. Apparently his memory wasn’t doing so great.

I nodded.

“N-O, no. C-A-L-L-S, calls. Oh! You’re saying they won’t call us and risk interrupting. They won’t know until tomorrow morning…” He punched the glass lightly. “Damn.”

I nodded slowly. That simple revelation wasn’t exactly worth all of the effort.

“Hey-- I bet you can’t guess what I write on you.”

I looked up at him. Constant stimulation… he was just like a toddler.

I shrugged and pulled up my sleeve.

“Close your eyes.”

I did as I was told.

C-A-R. I opened my eyes and pointed at a car parked across the street. Too easy, Mulder.

He chuckled at his defeat. “Aw, lemme try again.”

He stopped after one letter: I. I opened my eyes and pointed at him, suspicious.

He nodded. 

L-O-V--

I yanked my arm away.

“What? I was gonna say ‘barbecue!’ I swear!”


	8. About the A/C

"Hey, Scully?"

It took all of my remaining energy to sigh and answer. "What is it, Mulder?"

"I think I figured out why it's so hot." Mulder reached over, wrist limp, and moved his hand slowly back and forth in front of the air conditioning unit. After a moment or two, he looked sadly over at me.

"You're joking," I muttered.

"It's just outside air. It's not cold. I think it's broken." Mulder dropped his hand to his lap. "And it's somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and ten degrees outside."

There wasn't a lot to say. Being stuck in the middle of the desert without air conditioning was a nightmare scenario, for sure, but by this time we had lost so much of our energy just sitting in the heat that there wasn't enough left to panic.

"Oh."

"Yeah..." Mulder snorted a little chuckle through his nose, then started to wrestle his suit jacket off.

"Couldn't you fix it?" I asked.

Mulder put his face in his hands and slowly shook his head.

"You won't even try?" I scoffed. "Didn't you take auto shop or something in High School?"

He raised his head a bit to look at me. "I'm flattered that you think I'm macho enough to take auto shop, but that was reserved for the boys who weren't obsessed with extraterrestrials and government conspiracies."

I chuckled. I could already feel the sweat gathering on my upper lip. "Do you have a manual or something?"

"Um..." Mulder pointed to the glove compartment in front of me. "It might be in there."

Indeed, buried under stacks of outdated maps and various other pieces of paperwork, there was an old hardback auto manual. I flipped to the section on air conditioning units and started to read over the troubleshooting tips.

"I'll give it a shot. It doesn't look so hard." I was about to get out of the car, but Mulder put his hand on the book's open page. 

"Uh..." Mulder seemed to be struggling with a phrasing that wouldn't offend me. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sure I want you messing with my car..."

"Fine." I snapped the book closed and dumped in his lap. "You do it, then."

Mulder squinted his eyes and stared at me with a look of disgust. 

"Either you do it or I will. I will not sit and suffer like this before we've tried something."

He considered this, his eyes narrowing a little further before he agreed. "Fine. Then I'll do it."

Keeping his suspicious eyes fixed on my smug face, Mulder switched off the engine, opened the driver's side door and swung out into the intense sunlight. With a little smile, I followed Mr. Macho around to the front and watched as he popped open the hood.

Mulder coughed slightly, waving away the cloud of dust that exploded from the mechanism.

He clapped his hands together. "Okay! What have we got here..."

I laughed under my breath. It was hard to tell whether Mulder ignored me on purpose or just couldn't hear me. 

"Would you mind holding that book open for me, Scully?" Mulder asked.

"Oh, so I can't fool with the car but I get the honor of being your podium?" 

Mulder pushed the book at me, forcing his bottom lip into a little more of a pout and raising his eyebrows pleadingly.

I countered his pathetic look with a frustrated glare and snatched it back from him. I did my best to find the page without looking down, so as to keep staring Mulder down for as long as possible. Mulder gave me what seemed to be a genuine smile, which made it hard to keep on. A smile of my own tugged at the corner of my mouth and I looked down at the book to hide it.

Mulder started to roll up the sleeves of his dress shirt as he stared out into the landscape. There was a large shrub beside the car which we had parked behind in respect to oncoming traffic, hoping to snag a criminal intent on crossing the border. Mulder insisted that this had something to do with him being a Mexican shape-shifting monster, but his theory was flimsy at best.

At some point, he seemed to realize that he had already sweat through his dress shirt, and decided instead to loosen his tie and just remove the whole thing.

By this time I had found the page in the auto manual, and, with a shrub to one side and an empty desert to the other, there was nothing more interesting to do than watch Mulder struggle with his sleeves.

"What are you doing?" I asked, slightly panicked. 

"It's hot, Scully. Why, did you want a dirtier strip tease?" Mulder joked, swinging his shirt around like a lasso before hanging it over the open hood.

"Please." I grimaced at the sight of Mulder's sad excuse for erotic dancing. "I think I'd rather have my eyes removed from my sockets."

Mulder's scoffed. "I'm still wearing an undershirt, Scully. Don't get TOO excited."

"Enough," I scolded, though it was cheapened by a few involuntary chuckles. "Focus."

Mulder waved dismissively. "I've got it."

"Sure you do..." I muttered.

Mulder stared at the pages before him, glancing occasionally toward the car. He then raised a finger in the air. "Aha! I see what's wrong."

"You do?" I asked. "Mulder, there's at least a dozen possible causes... How can you be sure?"

Mulder ignored my concerns, as usual. "Let me just get my tools out of the trunk."

I closed the book and put it on the roof of the car as Mulder fooled about with the contents of the trunk. He returned with a wrench and went right to tinkering in the hood.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" I yelled over the clanking metal. "It sounds like you might be doing more harm than good!"

As if on cue, there was one final thunk from inside the car. Mulder stopped tinkering and slowly withdrew his wrench.

"Uh-oh..."

I followed him as he frantically ran back around to the driver's side door and tried to switch on the motor. It made some awful grinding sounds, but would not start.

Mulder put his head down on the steering wheel after several tries.

"Knew what you were doing, huh?" I commented softly.

"Oh, shut up, Scully..." He whispered.

After gathering his shirt and closing up the car, Mulder collapsed into the driver's seat. I was already sitting in the passenger seat. Watching Mulder struggle to roll up his pants legs in an attempt to cool himself down was just as sad as it sounds. As Mulder judged how many articles clothing he could safely remove in front of me, I sat with all of mine still on.

"Scully, aren't you on fire by now?" Mulder wondered. 

I clamped my arms down to my sides. I was sweating buckets, but I'd make sure Mulder never knew that. "I'm fine."

Mulder scoffed. "What, you afraid to show a little shoulder?" 

I clenched my jaw and glared over at him. To pacify him, I slipped off my suit jacket.

"Do we need to play a little strip poker to get you down to a reasonable number of layers?"

"I'm not undressing in a car with you in broad daylight," I told him. "And don't you dare take off your shoes. I draw the line at stinking this place up like the men's locker room."

"And what would Miss Celibate know about the men's locker room?" he teased.

I growled a little under my breath and started to undo the buttons on my blouse. Admittedly, I would like to be lounging in as little clothing as possible right now, but there were certain standards I had to abide by in front of my partner.

"Ooh! And off comes the blouse!" Mulder's cheery tone seemed loud enough to me to echo across the entire state. He quickly moved into humming The Stripper, doing his best to imitate the sultry brass.

Don't ask me how it happened, but I was told that we were found the next morning, Mulder wearing only his tighty-whities and stretched out in the backseat, and me frozen in the desert night, tucked in with my partners discarded clothes


End file.
